By just about any international standard, the Philippines ranks near the bottom rung among the world’s most corrupt countries. Transparency International places it 134th among 178 countries, one place below Nigeria but far below the scores of other countries often criticized for massive corruption, including the two Asian giants, China and India.

Kim Jong-il returned in August from his first visit to Russia in nine years with promises for vastly expanding economic ties with his great northern neighbor. Now the question is whether or not North Korea and Russia can fulfill the deals they agreed on at Kim’s summit in Siberia with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.

Last year, the United States completed delivery of a US$6.4 billion arms package to Taiwan, including ballistic missile defense systems, utility helicopters, and mine sweeping ships. This sealed the completion of the security cooperation agenda between the two countries.

Thailand’s tourism bureau may boast that the country is the land of smiles, but its often tumultuous politics — spanning coups and corruption — has just as often raised frowns. After the dramatic July 3rd national election, supporters of Yingluck Shinawatra are beaming.

Her Puea Thai Party claimed a resounding 265 out of 500 seats over the Democratic Partys’ 159 and their ousted prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. The election galvanized the nation and won much international attention partly because of its soap opera quality. Yingluck is a rookie to politics. She is also the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawtra, the former leader of the Puea Thai Party who was deposed in a military coup in 2006.

“In the golden age of Asia, Korea was one of its lamp bearers. And that lamp is waiting to be lighted once again. For the illumination of the East.” Rabindranath Tagore wrote this famous poem in 1929, and it was on the minds of many people during Indian President Pratibha Patil’s visit to South Korea on July 25.

The crowds watching the news at twenty minutes after midnight in the heart of South Korea's "snow country" exploded in cheers and tears like a fizzy blast of champagne bursting from a freshly uncorked bottle. "I had to cry when I heard," said Koh Seung-hee in the lobby of a luxury hotel in South Korea's winter wonderland. "We have been waiting so long."

The United Nations will finally wind up its peacekeeping services in East Timor in 2012, and all preparations to keep within this deadline are in full swing. It was almost six years ago that the East Timor government enlisted the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in 2006, following unprecedented civil riots and factional fighting that was taking one of the youngest nations in the world to the brink of internal strife and civil war.

The Philippines and its neighbours continue to be hassled by Chinese intrusions into their territorial waters around the Spratly Islands. After an incident in March of this year when a Philippine survey ship was disturbed by Chinese patrol vessels along the Reed Bank, despite the vessel being well within its territorial waters, the Manila government filed a complaint seeking clarification from the Chinese government.

The sparks are flying in what has been a diplomatic and propaganda war for a little-known island chain claimed in whole or in part by half a dozen powers, notably China but also Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. Mysterious sightings of Chinese warplanes over distant islets, atolls, and reefs in the South China Sea have fueled reports of China's expansionist aims in these troubled waters. They have assumed importance with the realization that a fortune in oil and gas lingers beneath the shallow sea. The contest most recently has involved a strange realignment of interests in which big brother China, Hanoi's main ally in the war that culminated in the victory of North Vietnam's forces in 1975, is now Vietnam's foe.

The Asia-Pacific Business and Technology Report had the privilege of sitting down with Joo, Jae Man, director of the Gyeonggi Daejin Technology Transfer Center of Gyeonggi Daejin Technopark, to ask him about the Technopark and technological transactions in Gyeonggi province and Korea in general. Dr.

Egypt and North Korea have long and historical ties. Around the time Hosni Mubarak was taking over, Egypt and North Korea began dealing in missiles – though Egypt was seen by Washington as a “good” Arab state and North Korea, then as now, as the incarnation of evil. Mubarak, when he commanded the Egyptian air force, got North Korea to send pilots to train Egyptians before the fourth Mideast war with Israel in 1973.

First comes the crisis, then the talks. The routine is so familiar it’s hard to generate confidence in Seoul from dialogue with North Korea.

All that’s sure is that North Korea, right after U.S. President Barack Obama hosted China’s President Hu Jintao at the White House on January 19, requested a meeting of North and South Korean defense ministers, and South Korea at once accepted.

US President Barack Hussein Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the First Lady Michelle Obama’s 4 day visit to India has really opened new opportunities, a number of deals that are rich in bilateral benefits - shifting the paradigm in Indo-US relations and the role India plays in the World.

In the space of a few hours, North Korea opened a new chapter in the turbulent history of the Korean peninsula.

The new leader is a young man named Kim Jong-eun, the choice of his father, the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who’s survived longer than most people thought possible after suffering a stroke in August 2008 but has to have had intimations of mortality.

The Japanese government accused China on Aug. 10 of sending drilling technology to a gas field in the East China Sea that is a source of dispute between the two countries.

It is called Shirakaba in Japan and Chunxiao in China. Katsuya Okada, Japan’s foreign minister, confirmed on Aug. 10 that he had intelligence that the Chinese were transporting drilling equipment in the several days preceding and asked about them through regular diplomatic channels.

The noise-making of demonstrators from outside the tall security fence surrounding the venue of the summit of leaders of the world’s 20 most important economic powers in November will probably not be heard by the summiteers meeting inside the spacious Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul’s high priced, highrise Gangnam district, south of the Han River that bisects the capital.

The charred remnants of burned-down buildings flash across TV screens across the globe as people watched the aftermath of Thailand’s worst political crisis in 18 years. Shops and other business establishments have started to reopen as gridlock once again fills the roads.